2023 Week 14 Recap

The Around the NFL podcast, the home of Sessler after.

Dark from the Chris Westling podcast studio. It's Around the NFL the week fourteen Sunday Recap. Whoa it is after dark, so you're gonna get a vibe Mark Sessler along with Greg Rosenthal, heroes both.

I'm Dan Hansis boys. How about this?

Listen to this right now as we record, here we go, I refuse to what listen?

Oh okay, let's get start the show going and start positive way, mister Rosenthal. The AFC wild Card situation wild there are six teams at seven and six. Six teams at seven and six Pittsburgh, Indy, Houston, Denver, Sincy, Buffalo, the NFC. They got the Vikings, the team of ATM they're seven and six, so that's nice as well.

And then five teams with six wins.

So it should be obvious there's a lot to be determined in this this final stretch of the regular season, and it's really.

Hard to tell who's what. It's like you're in a house of.

Mirrors trying to figure out what teams to really believe in right now.

Yeah, when I was like a young kid, I used to spend and I became obsessed with football like back then, like on with a pen and paper. I'd go through these like playoff things like in my room for hours. But it like nothing back then was like this because there were always six or seven dominant teams and some trash.

They're they'rew all cobble together right now.

Right we thought the AFC was going to be the better conference going into this year. It is, but for a different reason, like at the top, it's not. But they do have eleven. We do have eleven teams in the AFC above five hundred basically eliminated five and everything else is up for grabs.

I thought this was the best Sunday of the year, a.

Very good Sunday, especially the early window.

And then we had the game we're going to talk about right now because one of those teams entering action hoping to be seven to six was the Buffalo Bills. It was a game they absolutely needed. Guess what they went and they got it at Arrowhead.

Malmes in the shotgun, two receivers left, one to the right and Kelsey in motion coming over left to right. Here's the snap back to pass and pressure coming throws it deep down the middle of the.

Field, it falls incomplete turn over on.

Downs Buffalo Football with fifty five seconds remaining, the defense holds. Oh indeed, Chris Brown with the call w g R the Buffalo Bills. It's been a season of frustration and yet with kind of seemingly everything on the line, or at least it felt that way in this game, they find a way to get it done and maybe and we're gonna get to it some great fortune in this case involving Darius Tonian where he put his right foot on a faithful play by the Chiefs on their last drive.

And Mark.

Josh Allen, the numbers don't jump out at you in this game. It's not like he had one of those classic games. But it was such a great Josh Allen game to me, And how often he saved the Bills from catastrophic plays, big sacks, big swings of momentum, and he kept on making great plays, keeping plays alive.

It was vintage in so many ways.

I thought he totally responded, you know, when not the entire team did around him at times There was one play can that comes up first for me was a just a classic Josh Allen improvisational dose of magic, where it was a four yard completion of Dalton Kincaid on fourth and one.

He had no business even.

Being around to make that throw, and it's like, it's this is the kind of thing that only Josh Allen can do. There was the I thought, absolute pivotal moment late in the game where it is seventeen seventeen. They're driving to you know, essentially get a field goal, and he almost took a sack, or he should have if he were a different human, that would have put them like out in dangerous worlds outside of where you want

It would have been completely fatal.

And so you know it's like they don't look completely together to me on offense, this was a team effort, but Alan showed us what he can do and why they're in this moment and you can't count them out on any level.

This was a huge victory for the bills'n't saving.

Right their season would have finally, I would have finally said it is over now. And I know they would have only been one game back of all the seven and sixteens, but they had been in these games week after week after week, and and Romo said on the broadcast, how they've giving up three leads in the final minute Sean mcdermot's defense. So for their defense with some absolute fortune to take advantage of that fortune after the call on Kadarius Tony and make three great plays in a row,

All right, let's talk about the Tony play second and ten near midfield.

In fact, let's listen to it.

Let's listen to Chiefs Radio Mitch Holtis and company on what it looked to be a dramatic go ahead, a trick play touchdown that turned into a penalized play for Kansas City Buffalo.

They sent another blitz selling out flag on the play might be a free one.

They've got Kelsey at the thirty Kelsey twenty five, angling back twenty Now he's gonna ladder up back.

That's the fifteen yard line.

It's Tony ten time touchdown Kansas City.

They mess around and practice with us all the time. It's gonna go with a forty nine yard touchdown.

Kelsey the old University of Cincinnati quarterback number.

Nineteen offense line up in the Riffers five yard pendety.

Check it out.

Who wasn't on on Cadarius Oh my goodness, Oh my goodness.

Indeed, Cadarius Tony, who set the tone for the whole season really in Week one on Thursday night with that brutal game of drops against the Lions. And I said it as we are gathering around that the monitor to

His foot was in the neutral zone.

Now, why is Pat Mahomes going insane after the fourth down? In completion frustration that happened a few plays later, but also because on the third and long Von Miller had lined up and gone off sides and there was no flag. So you had the frustration of them, you know, eyeballing Tony the way they did, and then missing von Miller and Andy Reid, who's not just like you're not known to see Mahomes as angry as we saw him on the sideline. Andy Reid was openly critical of the officiating.

I never use any of this as excuses, but normally get a warning before something like that happens in a big game. A bit embarrassing in the National Football League for that to take place.

Wow, So and yeah, that is strong.

I don't know if that you get fined for that maybe and if you do, read can handle that.

But that's yeah in a row.

Now were the Chiefs that feel like they're on the wrong end of a pivotal officiating in the game. But once more, guys, you can't just look at the officials with the Chiefs because at the end of the day in their building, it was the other team's quarterback that you remember the plays, and it was the Chiefs scoring seventeen points. This is just who they are and they can't figure it out, and it's the wide receivers over and over and over and over.

Kill.

Yeah, I'd say with the Chiefs that when they had that Week one meltdown against the Lions, season starting not in any way that you'd wanted to, and they were we were given evidence that the whole internal whiteout crew is not going to be what you'd wanted. Maybe, and Tony obviously stood out in that one. And you have today and they're eight and five. They are two games behind the Baltimore Ravens, and you could, from a certain point of view say Tony cost them two games.

But it's not just him.

It's like these this cast of wideouts around Patrick Mahomes. You thought by now they developed, they'd be somewhere else, Like someone would have stepped up Tony when the All Summer was talked about as their potential so called number one.

Well, he's been sort of one of their number one nuisances. Guys.

He's on that. He was off the field the next the rest of the drive.

Yeah, and you had a feel, you feel for him as a human. But it's like, oh my god, they are one game up on the Broncos now in the division. It's it's getting into a very weird place, unprecedented in the Mahomes ried era.

And yet they still have a chance at the one seat. It'd be it'd be pretty hard. They're back too.

But they keep telling us, though, Greg, that they're not going to go on that run.

I don't get it right. I don't think that's gonna happen.

But I'm just looking at what the Ravens Dolphins, who play each other and have to go through, like everything is wide open. Rashie Rice has stepped up, and you know you're getting on me Dan in the newsroom for pointing out I've been saying that, you know, Rice isn't a guy to build the whole playing around because he doesn't really run all the routes and you.

Can't do that with a lot of prompts.

That that catch he made on the last drive around midfield was fantastic. I mean that is a starting wide receiver type of catch, not even really open, but a great throat, beautiful, great catch in that scenario, and that that was the point where they get to midfield with tons of time and timeouts because the Bills hadn't handled uh the situation well. And Sean McDermott, like he has a lot this year, is just calling blitz after blitz.

He gets bailed out a little bit.

And then the four men pass rush Oliver and Floyd and Jordan Phillips really did impact those last three plays.

And I choose to believe because I was kind of rooting for the Bills.

You were you had picked them, and pick.

We're picking him.

I just I keep thinking this Bill's team is better than it is and waiting for it to show up. I choose to believe Josh Allen would have gone down the field in seventy two seconds because he had a lot of time left there.

The game was not over. And maybe if you look at him and that class and we were robbed from that part of the class. You were celebrating the fourth and long and completion, We're like, great, Greg, we're trying to watch something good.

He's got his personal interest in this.

Can we celebrate We're watching football like the Josh Allen in that Eagles game.

Right then the buy happens. It feels like a long time ago with that.

In this, I do think the play calling switch worked in some sense where they're letting him do more what he does. I don't think they have another choice but just to let him.

Do what he does. But we're getting kind of right.

He also said, like they talked him in the broacasts that he said he's not felt this healthy like in years, and he looks like it. So I think it is a situation where you can look at the bills, it's like record aside. If they start to heat up and you get this version of Josh Allen, like I don't know where they're gonna wind up.

Yeah, so weird to see Mahomes that angry like he is. Lud do we have that, by the way, we have the footage. You can check it on in YouTube that is. And yes he's mad at the officiating because he's the one that's Von Miller and thought he had a free play. But this is a lot of things you're seeing that are boiling over with this team, and it is.

Uh, it's still weird to watch.

It's strange to watch this team in that money spot to instead of think what we've always thought, Oh nice try Bills, but you couldn't. Can't you miss Gabe Davis again on that and you go to kin k and they kick the field goal that's gonna cost you the game because Mahome is gonna make you pay. That doesn't happen anymore, No, not automatically, and it's not gonna happ until they fix the roster, and you can't do that until after the Super Bowl.

So that's where they are. Let's keep moving.

Great start, fun game, but it wasn't the game of the day.

That was in Baltimore.

Pathan Evans, it's punning the Tyland Wallace.

Eavan's hang to a wobbler Walla.

Settles under to twenty five, gets a block, comes out the air side, thirty spins out of one tackle thirty sideline Corny wants.

In a Cordy tell us, come on, hell he tackles.

Come celebration time, No fuge wus in the end zone, page in the board in.

Over time.

Man.

Yeah, a walk off punt return. It's only happened twice this season. They'll give up, give up the bongos. Let's give it up for Rams special teams that always finds a way.

Three mistackles on that. Anyway, here we go.

Well, his first game ever boys returning punts as a pro, Tyland Wallace goes seventy six to the house in ot to lift Greg's Ravens thirty seven to thirty one over Gregor's Rams.

I know it's confusing, but that's the way it is.

Anyway.

The game winner came following a wild end to regulation that included a dramatic third and forever TD strike from Lamar to Flowers and then a game tying field goal by the Rams in the final seconds of regulation. But in the end Greg they found away the Ravens, which is progress, I think, because this felt like the type of game that in the past the season, the Ravens found a way to lose.

Not this time.

Oh yeah.

When the Rams got the ball in overtime after the Ravens went three and out, I am thinking, good night, Rams are gonna go.

How about first and ten at the thirtieth right at the end of regulation, I was thinking, oh.

Yeah, I think the Rams are going to win this game. And the Ravens found a way to do it, and we'll get to all the quarterback play. It was a fantastic game. We're gonna watch it for our Game of the Week on NFL Plus.

So there is a lot to dig into.

And yet in a game like this sometimes it really does come down to special teams. Devin DuVernay got injured and during the game, and that's the only reason why Wallace was the punt returner. And Harba said he thought about going to Za Flowers because you know, let's be real, Za Flowers is just like a more dynamic player. But Wallace had been the guy in practice all season. DuVernay, who, according to my Twitter search, Ravens fans are sick of who even though he was a Pro Bowl return.

All he ever does is catch fair catches.

And they're like, oh, there's no way he would have even returned that one, and Wallace makes one of the plays of the year teams and it was against the last ranked Rams special teams all season wrong long, it's not just their kicker who actually came through today in tough situation.

All season along, the special teams have let them down.

And I was getting on Harbaugh and the Ravens who are big about special teams early in the year when they were really low in that those rankings, and they've climbed higher and higher and they're better than average now and their kick returns, I mean, their kicker, Justin Tucker had a nice day.

Hell yeah, hit some big kicks in tough conditions.

And then the special teams stole them a game to keep them on top of the AFC North. Otherwise that division would seem up for grabs.

And the way that the game started at that was optimistic for Baltimore and tells us that they're growing because you had the Isaiah Likely fIF four yard touchdown. Odell Beckham is a factor now where he was just a theory for.

Ninety seven, and two of those Grabs were really a guy on their offense difficult.

That's a huge development for them.

I mean, I think looking at from the Rams side, they started out really hot in this, like Matthew Stafford like games in a row, has been on fire. But it's like they got figured out in the second half here by Baltimore's defense to come out after a really optimistic first thirty minutes to punt four straight times.

But they finished so strong, and that's why this game went from like really interesting, good two fun teams twenty to seventeen at halftime he had two high level quarterbacks to like a truly great game because the end of the fourth quarter, both quarterbacks just took over. The Rams get the ball back with eight minutes to go and Stafford leads just a Cooper Cup touchdown drive where he is doing everything. This was an old school Cooper Cup game.

So it was like really high level quarterback play by both these.

Guys on the ground due by Lamar. I mean this is like that eleven for I.

Love the body language from Zay Flowers after the two point conversion as well. It's just like I'm that guy, Like this is the guy that Lamar has been looking for for years. I have finally arrived and I've taken this offense up the next notch do we have. I know it's in a losing effort, but we like to track calls of the year, and our intrepid producer Eric, who's having a nice Sunday bills are alive and well, he was in his car rolling in and he got a great JB long.

Call right yeah, coming in.

It's usually the chargers of the rams on my radio, and this was the go ahead score late in the game.

Here you go.

It's here, second down and goal from the five.

Has a snap helmet high looking left now middle pressure.

He steps up, he throwze right side end zone.

What caught back right pylon.

De Marcus Robinson with the go ahead score. Matthew Stafford play like an Ellipsis Dodds after dots after.

Dots down LA.

That's, by the way, I said on Thursday that I see him all the time in the barbershop.

I've actually never seen him in the barbershop.

I found that statistically to be weird.

I see him out and about and we stay in touch, and then we we've hung out in a park before with our families, but we go to the same barber So a little correction there by the insider. And that is the type of things. Some insiders brush things under the rug. Some people own their errors.

JB.

Long with that call, and it is interesting. Yeah, and again it's in a losing effort. But Stafford's pocket movement there is such a great year. This is like a I can see why Sean McVay is having fun.

And they are very much alive, obviously, and they have Washington, the Saints, the Giants, three arguably broken teams, and then the Niners to close out the season.

So I know this is a crusher, this is a total would have taken it to a different level, like a level where like, ooh, we're a fun story. You might get to the seventh seed of like we just beat maybe the best team in the NFL on the road straight up, because for most of this game, Lamar looked a little out of rhythm.

It was just him making plays.

Like the Rams I thought were a little more consistent through throughout the game, their defense was playing well, and then for it to end the way it did with McVeigh just having the same issues that he always have. So that you mentioned they had the ball on the thirty with plenty of time left, still.

I didn't like the play calling or just the vibe and energy of that drive from that point on.

I totally agree.

And part of it was they ran out of time at one point, had to use a time out late, they took a delay of game, and then in overtime they get the ball back they have I believe it was a second and four on their first drive of overtime on the thirty one and they take another delay a game and this is the history of the Sean McVay rams and some rams like how do you know is mcveaie's fault?

Like what about Stafford? It's like, I don't know.

It's been happening more than any to them, more than any other team since the moment they got there. So it's just like this one little bugaboo, the game management stuff and the like taking a while to get the play and and it killed them the next play that their tight end dropped a pass too that maybe wouldn't have gone for a first down.

And then the next play is.

Are they like I've mis seeing someone on their staff. You think that would be like, don't do this right now? Do this instead?

No, I think it's just McVeigh gets caught up in the moment. That's what happened. They had to burn a time out.

He got caught up in the moment on the on a play before uh and then like the play call doesn't come in in time.

Maybe they think maybe they should hire a guy that's great at close situations, late timing and knows how to pick guys for special teams, like maybe if you get out, yeah, see two birds, one stone, right, There's got to be somebody out there.

Monster dot Com could find that person.

Shout out to Cooper cup by the way eight for one fifteen in a touchdown.

He had been under fifty yards receiving in six straight games.

And he was awesome. A lot of the yards were after the catch. Puko is awesome. Nikua is just like.

Kyron Williams was awesome. They almost they went away from the run to it.

They start almost fainted just right.

What No, I just like trying to watch all these games, but yeah, I saw the one catching made. I'm just like this guy like has doesn't have a bad game. He doesn't disappear, he doesn't.

They they ran about seven or eight straight times to start the game to get inside of ten, and then they got a little pass happy after that one injury to watch Kyle Hamilton, to me, who is the most important player on the Ravens defense? Maybe except rokwand Smith, but it's the two of them. He left with the knee injury, and just the the way Harbaugh talked about the MRI to come, that's something to watch.

Oh, we got to get like a fainting chair the next time we do a RAMS game, Mark had the vapors.

There for so I mean I would say typically I survived RAMS recaps with without many issues.

But showed up. Ah, that's one talented That is how I actually speak.

All right, let's keep moving. Let's head to San Francisco where the Niner are just inevitable.

Stirred down at eleven here and he sent Deebo inside of branded a Yuk right Kittle inside of Juwan jennings Laft McCaffrey goes in motion that bumper motion upright blitz from Bobby Wagner.

They pick it up.

You've got Rock Perty's going downfield for Tabo, sad friend Cisco.

Mind what an MVP race we got now about that?

Well, it's between Lamar and Purdy and we're gonna talk about Sunday night football to combatants in the mix there.

It's really starting to heat up here.

Great call Greg Papa as always, and Rock Purdy was in his bag once more with a career high three hundred and sixty eight yards passing Deebo. Samuel, who's as productive as any player in football right now, scored two more touchdowns, including that long TD strike.

Kittle had a long touchdown catch.

Christian McCaffrey quietly goes over one hundred and forty five yards rushing, and the Niners win twenty eight to sixteen over the Seahawks.

Mark, you watch this game closely.

Not even a perfect outing by the Niners, but they're so good that they don't.

Have to be.

Yeah, they kind of won it in a a typical fashion for some of these Shanahan outings on offense, because it seems absurd to suggest they didn't have like an excellent clean outing on the day. They had five hundred and twenty seven yards. Oh stop, okay in twenty eight points, So there's.

But that's good.

That's eight plays.

Of twenty five plus yards that they ate up two hundred and eighty total. And it's like something about all of them right now are operating at like a level beyond human, like they were all in sync. It's like I think at other parts in the season you kind of had Debo was hurt for a bit, you'd have guys disappear for a little bit, like George Kittle. They're all right now on fire. I mean the throw to Deebo Samuel. Chris McCaffrey opens the game with a seventy

I mean, Perty is making.

These throws and he's making them beautifully, and there're some incredible stuff happening. But they were able early on in the game. They came out with the touchdown triggered by that McCaffrey long run. Then it was a punt, another punt, brock Purty at an interception, and it was like Seattle was hanging around and you were like getting maybe not the best version of the Niner.

Trew Lock, not Gino, who is inactive in this game.

Absolutely Gino sitting from the sideline, and Locke wasn't like a huge problem early. He threw two interceptions in the final fourteen minutes or something, But the Niners worked their way out of it, not with you know, a fourteen play type drive, but this time around like three four five play drives capped by massive explosive plays. So I don't know, it just showed me another way they can handle their business. And it's like, this is the one.

Team that is just blowing people away, right if the closest thing we can find a problem of their disjointed offense is like, well, they're only good at other than that, you're not great except for the eight twenty five yard plays. It's just like a crazy amount of explosive.

There's no way to describe it without sounding absurd excective. I think you go watch it from wire to wire on was.

A little rough.

I'm with you.

What I mean by that is like, even on days where you do some good things defensively, they're gonna hit you for those explosives. And this matchup is just it actually used to favor the Seahawks early in the Shanahan era before Rock Purty showed up, and even a little bit I think three years ago, but now it's one way traffic. The forty nine Ers have absolutely destroyed them five straight times the last two years.

Yeah, and the Seahawks are obviously going in the wrong direction. Seattles lost four straight games so the first time in fourteen years under Pete Carroll they've lost five and rod.

To the Niners.

And DK Metcalf gets running this game for you know, a fight.

Later in the game, he starts.

Out Buddy slams someone yeah, red hot with a touchdown that got him ahead early. And then you know, again like you're talking about the Kansas City that frustration especially, you know, you get into mid December some these teams where things aren't going the way they were expecting and it boils over and you so metcal Yeah, I.

Think that's you know, that's been part and parcel with the Metcalf experience. But I would imagine, like Dan, if I body slammed you at our workplace, there'd be cameras somewhere to catch it. But on an NFL field it would be NFL field, though it's like you're not getting away like this.

See that.

I'd like to see the attempt even on that. Yeah, maybe, like you know, maybe if he's high on speed or something.

I don't know anything else from this game, Mark not really.

I will say there was this incredible Mitch Wasnowski. It wasn't set up to be a fake punt. I don't believe in terms of like the play call because it seemed to kind of surprise other Niners.

But he just saw an open field.

They were up fourteen to ten at the point in the third quarter, and he bolted for thirty yards but it.

Was taken away by a penalty.

But I wish it had stayed it was would have been another big explosive play for them.

Just for listeners that are yeah, it was a cool play. That's fine. He just he did it on his own, though. I'm glad we got in the show. Otherwise it was never going to be lost in the.

Sands of time, yes, and the dustpin of history.

It would have gone if you were someone like that, you know, listen to our preview show and certainly the Thursday riec I mean you might be be like, why was Gino Smith not playing in this game? He was completely healthy and he heard his growing during practice. I want to find out what happened during practice there on Thursday and did not play, and that obviously that could change their season a little bit if that turned out, I mean long term injury.

If Greg is surprised by something that happened to Gino Smith's growing, you know, he's digging in, he's going to find out, he's on the beat, He'll find out.

Great party quote here, by the way, that shows both a level of awareness and also a reminder of what's going on here. This is from the ap righte up of the game. I'm part of a special group. Any of our guys, any one of our guys, any one of our eligibles, you get the ball in their hands and then they do the rest.

Yeah, McCaffrey one hundred and fifty three yards even he's an MVP candidate, mccaffe free.

Potentially, they are an incredible team.

It's just uh, let's see if they can you. Yeah, like, he's like the fifth I you mentioned of this game, and he went for one to twenty six.

Well, they're box scor is insane. Yeah, every week I had Warner too. It's just crazy.

All right.

He did suffer some injuries in the secondary. But we can discuss.

Well, that could have been your last point.

Shavarius Ward went down. Uh is this a redo with the last point?

Do we should we take.

The last point?

Drake Greenlaw went down. That could be an actually tag on to my.

St and you started your previous last pay by saying no.

But then you made that other point.

That I won't say a single other word though, done anything else, nothing else. Once we leave, we can't come back nothing else from me on this about this.

Let's go to Cleveland. Haws that go Margie, Are you like that intriguing? It was quite a day, big Mannish playing with the football.

On the t Here we go for the on side, can't He dumps the ball on the right side.

The Browns are on it. They got it.

They got it on the right side. They recover the ball.

It's getting it is James Prochet and the Browns can get into victory formation with a minute thirty.

Two and what a long afternoon? This has bad?

Wait, this is out, Jim.

This was smooth sailing the whole the Cleveland.

Browns and on sidekick recovery.

Yeah, it was the game rare. You can change it, change things up.

It's good, all right. They flagged that for.

Me next time. Eric, all right, I thought it was.

As it talks about how it is an on sidekick recovery, it's sealed.

To the game by the team that was being kicked to. It's sealed the victory factually.

Yeah, Dave David Joku scores two touchdowns in this game. We can get that Joe Flacco playing out of his mind. He can't get the highlight. Brown's thirty one twenty seven over the Jags. Come on, ar give one of those guys systog. Yeah Flacco, not a Fluco.

Not a Fluco.

To serve the highlight, He's thrown for five sixty five and five touchdowns and two starts Bleveland.

It has to be the hope in an unlikely place this holiday season.

It has to be one of the more like improbable quarterback because of who it is, and because of what Joe Flacco did to the Browns for so long, and because of how he didn't get a call to work with any other team this entire year until everything burned

This was a weird game.

It had thirty four possessions, There were fifty passes in the first half. The Viking game was like we were a quarter into the Vikings game in the late window and the Browns game was still going on. They got just enough from everyone, but you did get a star turn from David d Djoku And I know has been your guy.

He's been. He was frustrating last week. He was frustrating last week.

But today, honestly, I think he showed what he is when he's successful, is like a powerful steam engine who like stiff arms someone and just rolled into the end zone on a huge touchdown.

He's very physically talented. He really is.

Their defense, which has been like hot and cold. I think of late that the Rams put it on him, but when they're at home, they're a different unit. And Trevor Lawrence, who looked pretty healthy to me, like I was thinking what version I ran it? He moved around, He ran a bunch. He was harassed from wire to wire until the very end when they did start to come back and move the ball a bunch.

And that's why I do.

Think, and I know I'm not gonna get you to agree this, but like that, I really, for some reason thought like another Browns team because their record to me doesn't quite match up with who they are.

I can't really figure out how the five.

That's the thing, and it feels like, you know, it's been up and down, but like they they really never really relented, and I see a secondary that plays total confidence. They picked them off a bunch. They sacked them a bunch. It wasn't even like the biggest game from Miles Garrett on the planet. They have a bunch of injuries. They Grant Delpit, who they signed to an extension, got hurt.

How many possessions did he say, we're in this game thirty four.

That's got three hours and forty eight minutes of football.

So yeah, I went what it's crazy?

I went big on like the whole Chiefs played well last week per possession offensively, they only love it. They only got seven Like per possession they were, you know, one of the best offenses.

Of the of the week.

This game, these two offenses played like two complete games compared to that Packers Chiefs game. For instance, they played two games worth of possessions to get to this number. So I guess that informs the Flacco numbers. But I don't care that some of the stats are just crazy. He's the first Browns quarterback since Brian Sipe in nineteen eighty to throw three touchdowns of over thirty yards in the same game.

That makes me feel special.

You know how they always have that Brown's T shirt where it would be all the quit. Now they're gonna they're gonna have to start a new jersey. It's Brown's quarterbacks under Kevin Stefanski that have outplayed Deshaun Watson. I mean, it's getting long. We got Baker in twenty twenty, we got Flacco this year, we got Jacoby Brissette.

For all of last year, we've.

Held let's throw in the case Keenum couple starts where he won, Like.

It's getting long. It's insane. That's the fans.

He keeps taking these guys and at least for stretches like gets them playing at a very high.

Yeah, I think he deserves some credit and it should be no surprise. But like you know, they they announced that Flacco obviously would be the start of the rest of the way.

They kept doing this thing with whoever was going to be their starter.

Flacco spent last week on the practice squad Like if I'm not like I believe I'm correct with this. Like another the Jets could have come snatched Flacco off a practice squad and made them their starter.

Like it just seemed like a bit of a hazardous.

I believe at that point, yeah, they could have.

Is that concern me that would be a strategy that we'd employed at this point.

I think that happened with John Wolford earlier this season. I believe in the Bucks decided to match it. But that is crazy that they they they aren't going to do the week to week thing anymore.

No, he is. He's embedded now.

But it's tough luck for DTR, who actually was playing okay and then he did lose it to injury.

DTR came in and had like a very critical, like chain moving run where they then they had Flacco jogg bat out so they don't go not expecting Flacco to run around the field too much.

And you look pretty good.

Any concerns here about the Jags, who now I've given up twenty seven points or thirty one points to Flacco, whatever they gave up last week to Jake Browning. You know, they lucked out with the rest of the division results today, But this defense doesn't looks.

As I mean, they got in the last six days, they got beat by the Cincinnati backup and then like the third quarterback on the depth Charter fourth for the Browns. So it's like, you know, when they are not hosting playoff games or you know they're in a perilous situation come January, it's because they stumbled at this portion of the schedules. You know, in credit to Trevor Lawrence for you know, competing in this game and from what I saw, was moving well. And finally, the Evan Ingram connection is

That's being asked to do so much. Now the offense has a little life to it.

It's a fun story.

Do you could block for Flacco? He shown at thirty eight years old he can move an offense. They looked, they looked different. This is one of the first complete games in a while.

Mark's back. I mean, he said, well, I would say this like we in there. I missed that you were there for the Wii. He said something about we, like I don't.

I hate having to clarify this because then I get a bunch of tweets from people it's like, why did you change your stance on the Browns? Like I completely disagree with the Browns signing Deshaun Watson on any level. He's not in our lives right now, and from a just a watching football that's enjoyable or teams that are weird in a really strange season, like Flacco being the Browns quarterback, like at this point is one of.

The weirder sports stories of this Year's enough.

To be clear, I love it you were. You were enjoying this game as a fan, and that's great.

I was apparently I picked the wrong like I didn't like. What I enjoyed was not do we have another highlight?

Is there anything we could do? This is eating me?

You know the call.

The call was pretty good because it talked about what a long day it was. It was a nice little summer.

That's like he captured because they were calculating they almost blew that game, and he's like the other ways you got to go back to like you know, the early fourth or something.

Okay, you're all wrong. I'm right post it note on the computer show the joke on your on your fantas. He's not. But I'm a big.

Fan of you could have gotten to David Bell touchdown in the fourth.

Gotta give Flacco the highlight. Well here's my thing. How about next week when he does it again?

Ooh it spoken like I like it? All right, let's take a break.

I'm going to recover from that recovery and we will roll on with our stop.

Yes, Nick Schulke, all right, welcome back.

It's time now for the Sunday Drive presented by the first ever Toyota Highlander and uh let's head to Cincinnati, where the Bengals said, we are relevant.

Second down in goal, inches away, the Bengals already up by seven. Now Browning moves under center. He has Mixing five yards behind him. Browning will try to sneak it in. Mix In shot him in the back into.

The end zone.

Touchdown Bengals and Cincinnati has a.

Two TD lead. Dan Horde wk why with the call.

Jake Browning as that dog existing within him, The twenty seven year old played like a star for the second time in six days, throwing two touchdown passes, rushing for another score in the Bengals beat.

Up on the Colts thirty four to fourteen.

Let's now welcome in a man who could beat up on a lot of people if he chose to. But he's not a man of violence. He doesn't throw hands, Mark, but he will if he must.

If he needed to, But he doesn't. It's not out of pocket that he just could do that left and right.

That's a special kind of power. I won't beat you, but just know that I can. Nick Shook the pipe, Welcome aboard, buddy.

With great power comes great responsibility, and I exercise plenty of responsibility in conflict situations.

Absolutely.

What's going on in those Cleveland you know, those those clubs and bars. I'm sure sometimes they see a guy like Shook, you know, six foot eight, two seventy five, carved out of the side of a mountain, and they say, I'm gonna you know, I'm gonna show what.

A man I am. Yeah, I'm going to use him to lift myself up. That has ever happened to you?

Dix A two seventy five reads like an overblown college bio let's do let's do six four sixty three and flirting with sixty four two thirty two thirty five.

Let's go with that.

You know, I'm very concerned of late about like child gangs, which is a prevalent radar. He could, I like shook just because he could take out an entire child gang and they deserve it that if they can business child is.

This like child gangs?

Like pickpockets like you're worried about, you know, a group of cockeye pickpockets coming inround.

It's like the violence ranges and the what their quest is ranges, but they're criminal in nature.

All right, let's get to it. Uh Browning again looking good? Huh yeah, real good. Uh that that was not a fluke on Monday night much too?

Uh, you know, the we all thought it was probably gonna be a fluke.

And then he comes out and executes the offense efficiently once again, Zach Taylor doing a great job coaching up. You know, a nice little mix of screens, the running games going, everything's balanced out and allowing Browning to just do what he's asked to do. And then he mixed in the big plays. Started the second half with a few deep passes, He had a beauty down the sideline to t Higgins.

Everything was just cooking.

On this offensive side of the ball for the Bengals, who you know, this is a team that we thought they were headed toward a dark winter once they lost Joe Burrow, and now suddenly they got belief, legitimate belief and hope that they just might make the playoffs, to the point where you might not even want to be somebody who faces them because they still have a championship roster outside of quarterback, and their quarterbacks doing his job quite well.

The win over the.

Colts today, like this is a cold scene that we know has probably overachieved to get to this point, considering they've had Gardner Minshew a quarterback, you know, for the

Like the better team.

I think one of the great things is like they didn't have to go change their offense to tailored around you know, Browning's like limitations. It's like this looks like a Joe Burrow offense, and it's like there's a lot of stuff happening. I'm not calling him Joe Burrow on any level, but like you're the QB index guy, Like, where would you put him right now?

Like what do you do with someone like that?

Well, we're facing a little bit of a battle of Ohio right now between backup quarterbacks because Joe Flacco and Jake Brownie are both playing relatively out of their minds considering what we expect if backup quarterbacks.

Now.

Flacco, you know, being a former starter, probably has a higher level of expectation, but.

He is thirty eight years old.

So Browning and Flacco are both at the top of the backups group, and they're actually out performing some starters in the league right now, and a handful of those guys.

It's going to be an interesting week for QB Index.

A lot of movement, a lot of performances that we probably didn't expect. But I'm excited to kind of dig in on that and Browning. You know, you don't want to put too much stock in a win on the road over the Jaguars on prime time, But now that we've seen him do it a couple times in a row, now you got to take him seriously from here on out. This is not just a one game, fly by night

They're one of the six seven and six teams right now, and now they have a tiebreaker over the Colts, they have a tiebreaker over the Bills. You know, it really is a credit to Zach Taylor and that staff and the fact that when the game got tight again and maybe we saw it against the Jaguars as well, like they trust Browning, and like what you're saying, they were

But apparently that's not the case here.

No.

I mean two hundred and seventy five passing yards on eighteen completions. He only had to throw the ball twenty four times, and yet it felt like they really controlled this game.

He's just completely in rhythm. He looks comfortable.

And I don't know if this is a microcosm of the way Zach Taylor coaches his offenses, because what he looked like to me, even going back a few weeks ago when they played Pittsburgh and right after the Ravens loss when they play Pittsburgh, I thought, man, he looks a lot like Joe Burrow did way back in week two of Burrow's rookie season when they played in Cleveland in prime time. And I'm sitting there thinking, man, this kid's got no experience, yet he looks really calm and confident.

That's kind of what brown does.

Obviously he doesn't have the same physical tools that Joe Burrow does, but you know, it's a beautiful partnership between coach and quarterback right now, and Browning is just playing as somebody who knows he doesn't have to be the hero, probably isn't capable of being the hero and is totally fine with that. He's just gonna take what is given or is what is asked of him, and it's working really well right now.

They're also getting contributions in a way they just weren't with Burrow. For the most part, they run for over one hundred yard Chase Brown literally wasn't on the field ever with Burrow, and he has a second straight big game. He goes for over one hundred yards from the scrimmage. And then their defense, which has been a sieve for most of the season, has its best day of the year in terms of yards allowed. They only give up

Agree Cincinnati winless in their division.

Still, that's really hurt them, so they're in a bad tiebreaker spot, so they got to keep winning.

Anything about the cults that you wanted to throw in.

There too many mistakes, too many penalties.

They had a season high penalties with nine today accepted for sixty six yards a bad interception. Garder Mishue just under pressure a lot throughout the day. Bernd Ryman, the left tackle, got dominated by Trey Hendrickson.

The matchup numbers are bad when it comes to pressures. I don't even want to read them.

They're that bad.

It's a team that I think they've already hit their ceiling, and if they can continue to play at that level, they'll make it interesting through the rest of the year. But games like today are going to happen because again, you do not have your star, future franchise quarterback on the field right now, and there's only so much you can do when you're running games not going and you're trying to dig yourself out of a hole.

And that was the Sunday Drive presented by Toyota Let's Go Places learn more at toyota dot com. Slash Grand Highlander, Let's stay with Nick Shook and head to the desert for a game featuring two teams that will not be in the desert on Super Bowl Sunday.

Freeze zero Minnesota.

With let's keep it in the middle.

The thirty four.

Yard line and the Las Vegas Raiders Pop gone bust against the.

Minnesota Vikings thanks.

To Space Junior, and I've been with this first National Football League interception.

Has knocked out the Raiders.

And the Minnesota Vikings are gonna win three zero.

Oh yes, the Minnesota Vikings.

You just don't even try to score on them because they're not gonna give you anything.

I can't do it.

And all they needed was a field goal. So they say, we're not gonna get crazy. We're the team of ATN. We're not gonna over exert. We'll just kick a field goal in the final minute, in two minutes and we'll win three nothing. And that's what they did, beating the Raiders to improve to seven and six. And it is here's some data points.

Let's give Dick Banks before.

This is a very special mine. So yeah, there's reasons to be nervous about the Vikings as the team of ATN shooky because they're trending downward. Josh Dobbs after his Monday Night Nightmare against the Bears, comes back off a bye and is so abysmal that they pull him for Nick Mullins. In this game, who is the quarterback when they went on the field goal drive? Justin Jefferson finally comes back and then ends up in hospital during this game with a chest injury, so that certainly is concerning.

Yeah, there was more juice in that theme song than there wasn't this game for either team.

It was a tough watch.

If you're a fan of defense, you might say, well, you know, this is a great game, but it was more product of bad offense than good defense. Now, the Raiders got after Josh Dobbs a ton. Josh Doabbs didn't help himself with the way that he sends pressure and kind of panicked. I totally understood why Kevin O'Connell went to Nick Mullens late. I was a little surprised, just

It needed to be made. And I think if they're playing anybody other than the Raiders, what Patriots, they probably lose this.

All right, let's come down here, because first of all, the Raiders have played a lot with Aidan O'Connell. This is easily the best defensive performance anyone's had about had them. Their defense is very good, like it's been a top ten defense.

Second of all, they lose Justin Jack Gregg.

They lose Justin Jefferson to a chest injury right away. He had two catches early in this game. Both of those two plays were high level plays by Josh Dobbs. It's funny how quarterbacks look better when they have an exceptional wide receiver.

They lose their right tackle.

I think a team captain Brian O'Neill, a Pro Bowl caliber guy. They lose a starting guard, Dalton Reiser during the game, and they find a way to win. Nick Mullins the old Mulldog, throwing some lollipops over to the sideline, but in between zone covers. There were some pretty clutch throws and they get out of there for a victory and maybe Jefferson's injuries.

Some lollipops we called feathered, Okay, I don't know.

They were just like You could see why Nick Moons has had the career he's had because he came in, he made great decisions.

The game wasn't too big for him.

You could also see the reason why he's had the creery is that because just the ball was just taken well, so there's you could use it. You move on to next week, you get Jefferson back. Well, they win beat some bad teams in the hospital, they said, they said, they don't think it's significant.

He's on the plane coming. I think it's fair to.

Say, like, depending on you know, I the beholder, that Nick is right. There is a trending down snare today. When your quarterback gets benched is a slight disaster? Was a disaster last week. We'll see what happens with the wide receiver. You've lost a bunch of offensive linemen. It's Laddison got hurt by the way in this game too. So he just scored three points in an NFL game. So I and and somehow won to the air up to the defense.

No, you don't like to root for the team of ATL I'm just saying, is part of the package?

Some crazy I.

Don't I do like roots to them. I don't need to manufacture out of ten year on this one. I'm gonna wait and see mode with this team.

How about this?

If that doesn't do it for you, how about a lock a double lock.

Yeah that's Rosian Zeuser Combo two and L.

This is the soundtrack to my nightmares.

Yeah, I don't even ask.

At first, I didn't like this whole thing that you were jumping on with the lines. But I gotta say you're doing a good job as an offensive coordinator.

There's more juice here than the Vikings now, and here's the spirit. Here's my spin on team of ATM because this is an emergency meeting because they Okay, they did win, but the juice is out of the bottle. So now we're at a low point and we see if they can somehow rediscover the magic. But we kind of picked them based on Dobbs being a funky guy to bring in their tenacity on defense justin Jefferson's eventual return, and all that stuff except.

For the defense has disappeared.

I guess the lesson, maybe Mark is when you because the Lions was such a natural pick last year and we got to go on the whole ride with them, but even that started out poorly. Jumping on a team in the middle of the season is a big, big risk because the NFL season, despite being only seventeen games long, has so many like peaks and valleys. Beware of joining a team during a peak. Maybe there's another peak to come, but right now we're kind of in a valley.

Even though they won they're not out of it on any level.

Obviously, they're two and two with us, by the way, as the team of atails.

That's so that's that. I think the record speaks for itself.

Yes, Yeah, Joshua tell Us with the big forst Foma. We've talked about him all year. He got an NFL Plus thing that was the biggest play in the game because that was the only time either team was in the red zone. And then Ive and Pace Nick, an undrafted rookie who's been easily the best rookie linebacker in the NFL. I would put a maybe top five or six defensive rookie of the year period. One of our guys, Spice racks favorite players thirteen sack and then the game

Into the season.

Yeah.

I was gonna give a little shout out to Mattellus. He's been my favorite guy to watching this defense all year. It's a group that you looked at them on paper coming in the season, You're like, I just don't see it. On the defensive side of the ball, a lot of people are playing better than we anticipated them. I'm a pace being one of them. DJ Wanham's been a guy that has shown up in a number of games this

They shut that offense down. It's just that, like we just discussed, I.

Don't know, man, it feels like paper clips and chewing gum and the last month is a separation season. I just don't know what the quarterback situation, how it's gonna go. But a good win for them, and then if we if we do pivot to the Raiders. Part of the reason that Brian O'Neil ended up leaving with an injury is because he was getting ran over by Max Crosby.

All he was awesome today.

That Raiders defense was stifling throughout the afternoon until the fourth quarter. It's almost like he just asked them to do too much since the offense was I feel bad for them, yeah, I know, but because in that situation they had to get a stop.

They couldn't get a stop.

Here's the big question with the Raiders that I present to you guys now is look you have a month left. You already declared Aiden O'Connell's your best quarterback, your best option. But yet we know that you know he's had some moments, but he's probably not your long term answer. You have an interim head coach? How do you proceed through this last month? You're five and seven? What is there left to figure out? When everybody could be.

Gone five and eight?

You're just you're just playing out the string. There's not much to it.

Yeah, you can get a nice little window intrigue here.

I think you.

Just take a deeper look at Antonio Pierce, who like has a supposedly chance to be a head coach.

There was a twenty five minute meeting after the game that held up Antonio Pierce's press conference because Mark Davis was talking to Pierce and just the odds he was facing an extreme uphill battle to keep that job. And I guess that's the only intrigue, as if they could keep this going and win a few more games.

But that's it, Jack, All right, Uh shooky, you said it all, Thanks Bud.

Thanks, Well, you.

Didn't ask the question. I had one question.

Yeah, have guys picked fights with you to try to prove that there are men for their buddies for girls or whatever.

Has it happened yet?

Yes, until I stand up from the table.

They approached me and then they kind of oh, hell yeah, oh yeah, that's the pipe.

Baby. You got my back, I got yours, buddy, all right.

Thanks Nick?

All right, guys.

Thanks.

That's odd though, because like Nick's sitting down like at a booth with five other people. It's still really big, but like you wouldn't go pick him out of the Like, that's not how you be the guy walking around.

It seems like, are you poking a hole of the story. I I just I have I have additional question. Literally, let's we're gonna ask him more. Okay, next week we'll do.

Eric remind us that, okay, because by the time next Sunday and the time comes, it will literally feel like this conversation was seven years ago to the Soggy Metal Lands week go where Act was in the air gun for Zach Wilson.

Hall to his left, There goes Gipson and motion.

Wilson takes the snap, drops back, looks left, ros left, Paula in the inside.

That's a jet touchdown. Police Hall walks in.

Have a Jets answer hen't stretched the score to two leads.

Again now, and I think we'd hear the song again this year.

Bob was choosing with the call Jets Radio. Like a phoenix rising from the ashes. Zach Wilson has returned the much beleaguered quarterback through for two second half touchdowns. He went over three hundred yards passing and his return from a bizarre two game benching, and the Jets beat down a Texans team that played like, you know, one of those dome teams that don't want anything to do with a rainy December afternoon in the Northeast. That's what the

They scored thirty points in the final in the second half.

The Jets so interesting Zach Wilson game because you see he made plays in the second half that you understand on some level why the Jets have been reticent to let go because they think they could there's one day someone unlocked in there now me and Connor Orr wrote something that I agreed with over on SI today. I think it more points out just how inconsistent Wilson is as a quarterback and that's never going to change, or

It's kind of like also, they kept cutting up to the booth where Nathaniel Hackett in the first half when things were bad, Like I thought, I saw a crack in the armor of like just a bit of concern where yeah, just like I mean, he knows that we're staring him on camera and things are going terribly. I mean just from like a human side, because I feel like Zach Wilson obviously has been yanked around so much.

I think they can't maybe make the same mistake.

That's a huge It's just a personal He can walk around New York City this week and not feel like he's letting the entire metropolis down.

I like that. But c J.

Stroud going out with to me, the biggest story of this game.

Yeah, the Texans. It was a total loss. It was all bad and the game is already well decided when Stroud gets hurt. He was knocked out of the game with a concussion. It was a pretty bad hit where he slammed the back of his helmet on the turf on a Quinn Williams hit Nico Collins, who were just talking up as this guy that like nobody's paying attention, but he has almost a thousand yards receiving. He lasted one possession before leaving with a calf injury. Linebacker play.

That was just five starters.

Yeah, in the midway through the third quarter before they had their one scoring drive, they had negative eleven passing yards that deep into the game. And you know, it was the type of performance from the Texans that yes, and I know you're high on the mark and I think when they have everybody on the same field when healthy and they're healthy, they.

Can be dangerous.

But I did not like, even before Stroud went out, just the vibe of the team did not feel like a team that's ready to play crucible games in December and January. Could be just a bad day at the office, but they were badly outplayed by a team that was like in tatters going into this game.

Well, they're down their top three wide receivers, which now with Collins gone and including i'm receivers in general because Schultz has gone. So that's you have a rookie quarterback down three receivers, and then you lose three of your key defensive places too. Cashman and Thomas have been vital to them. Their offense really hasn't been hitting since that Bengals game that was kind of the high point of

This stuff?

All these seven and six teams every time you lose, the season's not over. The odds are of all those seven and six teams a total of zero will go four and O. I mean, that's an overwhelming odds that none of them will run the table because you think of the first four weeks of the season, how many four and O teams did We have only great teams win four straight games. So if you're seven and six,

I don't like, so you're engaging with with Texans fans who are like concerned about their mathematical chances when the entire AFC is within Like.

I think it's more the way they lost, maybe the way they engage with them.

Well, I'm not engaging.

It seems absurd to me.

It's the reporters too, I see.

Like, imagine if you were a Browns fan, you come into this game seven and five, you lose thirty to six to the Jets, and your quarterback goes out with the concussion of four others started, You're feeling like it's all.

So yeah, all that stuff feels real to me.

Yeah, Like the fact that you're probably gonna get an AFC team that wins nine games and sneaks into the wild card, and they're sitting that they have seven. Yeah, they play the Titans twice, and who knows where the Colts will be at that point.

I'm way to go last point on because circling back to Hackett in the second half, when things started going the other way and he called a good game, I have to say, for the first time, it was like, Okay, there was some misdirections, some trickeration. They were kind of he was actually having a nice day for once, and they showed him having like a release and a celebration. Was like, oh, that's the good because we knew from Hard Knox he's a good guy. Right, he's just in

He's a curiosity. He remains. I don't want him to be my quarterback ever again after last four games.

But you know what's fun, It's fun to see him when things are going well and just cutting loose. All right, let us move on, Hold on, d yes, second he is you wanted me to pull something from the Yes, thank you. I did not want to let you get past you. Because this can't go.

This can't go without mentioning that someone did lock this game up, and it was one Nick Westling who was having a grand old chuckle during his prediction. Let's revisit that.

Hidding me?

This team's an absolute show. How can they even be get considered an NFL franchise right now?

This is a joke.

How they are only three and a half point favorites is beyond me. The Texans are going to roll by thirty. This isn't even funny. I don't even know why I'm laughing. It's a disgrace.

Good luck Jets, Better luck next year.

Bye. Who's the disgrace?

Now?

I don't think Nick is wearing pants in that video? All right? Uh, let's move on. Where are we going next? Where are we going next? Let's go to Soldier Field. Listen, he's a showman. And that was that was that was a great message, just it wasn't accurate. He put himself on the line and you know it didn't work out for him.

Lion's showing blitz.

Lions have their safeties back deep away to snap Justice Fields off the left side, free play for Justice worked it down the left side.

He's got gloping into the end zone for the touchdown.

Touchdown Bears and they're back in front. Thirty eight yard strikes.

Dude, Jerry Moore, the Kensmar's overplayed Trushner.

Wow, my goodness, man, who do we get bongos to?

It was deserve it Rams Ravens, But I gotta say the Bears, the Bears. I did have that thought for seconds, so many choices. The Bears could have gotten the bongos because the Bears played a really good game on Sunday, really giving it to the Lions, the rival twenty eight to thirteen win. Justin Fields threw for a touchdown, ran for another and that play. I chose that one because it was a fourth and long and the just no hesitation.

Justin Field's drop back, he sees DJ Moore.

In one on one coverage, he just drills it and they say we have this ability.

So Matt Ibraflus, the head coach.

All of a sudden, there they've won three or four and he got his first division win last week. Ibra flues, which is insane now that he has his first back to back wins as head coach of the Bear. So there's sacking some things here now, and it was it was just nice to see the Bears showing some life and Mark, I think I think I kind.

Of threw this out there a couple of days ago.

Could justin fields get the Bears thinking with a strong finish and I thought he played better than even his box score in this leading this offense on an impressive show.

Yeah, I think for these teams that you know they're out of it to some degree, but a lot still matters. And it, like I mean, ibra Flus two weeks ago, to me felt like will he finished the season with his team, probably because the GM and him are very linked. But it's important for us to see what the vision of Matt Eberluse is and that, you know, beyond even justin fields, this was a defense, a roster that gave away defensive talent a year ago, burned it all down a little bit to the ground.

Had no pass rush coming into the year.

The Montes Sweat acquisition I think has absolutely turned a key on this defense.

But they've been a legit.

Raal good hit today, right, He's been great, and they had four sacks they believe, and they made life really difficult for Jared Goff. And I think the other side of this is like concern around the Lions continues to grow and bubble.

Yeah, I just don't like the energy around this team right now. I think Lions fans that are freaking out. I'm sure there are some out there. I think there's reason to be concerned because there's just some things that we are not seeing. Aiden Hutchinson finally kind of got it going again in this game, so that was positive. But they but the slow starts Detroit. They've been trailing at the end of the first quarter down three of

Every quarterback has their best game in a while against this team, and it's concerning. This is a division matchup, and so they know each other a little better than other teams.

But it's the Bears. These two teams have played twice.

I watched every second of that game live last time, and the Bears were the better team, scrept them for fifty five minutes and it wasn't fluky. I know Goff had a couple of interceptions in that game, but they were also winning the line of scrimmage. They were moving the ball like they were the better team. The Bears have looked pretty reasonable, I would say for seven eight weeks now. I mean they had a backup quarterback playing, but the team around Bagent and now since Field's come back,

It's concerning.

Yeah, And Jamier Gibbs also, once again, maybe getting him more and more involved with the offense will help because he gets the balls on his ball in his hands, and he was excellent again in this game, but overall.

Just not enough.

Get The Packers, by the way, who play Monday night, are very much in this division race now. Oh for sure down down too. If they can win that game with four to play, it is not over. And we mentioned ibra Flus like if they've finished strong, you could see this Bears organization in over the years has been not wanting to pay their coaches to go away. It's just kind of not been their mo Their ownership isn't too involved. So he I think he has a chance if they keep playing well.

They've Joshine now like they're trended like he could.

If they can finish with a sense of dignity and some success, I think he will get another year, which maybe is not the right move, but if they're showing progress, and then the next question will be greg to.

Circle back to the fields thing.

Sure you have DJ Moore now and that's now a legitimate thing. You have Marvin Harrison's son out there is the next big thing coming.

Out of college.

The idea of well we could draft a new quarterback, or we could give him a potential superstar a pair with more and really start building or.

Down that right, or we trade down to like whoever is the two or the three? Pick get Harrison, get right picks. It all could be exciting, and I'm not sure keeping ever Refluse would be the right decision. I'm leaning no, but I kind of like more ebra Fluse in our life.

It's it's done.

Like the last six or seven weeks, I've realized he's an extremely goofy person in press conference that I feel like if he was on coaching a different team, people would be like, what is with this guy?

And he gave a little example, just a little exam.

He's just weird.

Now.

Jamon had seventeen tackles today. Jaman that crazy?

What did you should him?

The way he was playing sounds like Mike College.

Sit over there, I got well, he's winning, he's feeling good.

It's even the awkwardess is like, hey you over there, I got jacket.

It is this safety risker at seventeen tackle. A safety with seventeen tackles, he like linebackers with seventeen tackles.

I like that though.

That's one of those like sneaky flexes where I'm showing I have a sense of humor. I'm showing that I'm loose and easy, and I'm also showing you that I was a great player once the time.

I bet you know I saw his pillow talk at home. Is like, honey, you've got to like kind of show them who you are, show them the person that I know.

We want the real mat to come out.

Yeah, Like I recognize him now when I see him, Like, I think that's progress. That's a turning point switch. Who would blame us? Who could? I mean, who says we can't?

Who's locked?

Whose choice is it other than who locked it? Oh I did? Oh Markie, Oh, cess Dog. That's okay.

Maybe I'll, you know, join ship with some other person winning twelve games a week.

Do you want it? Do you want to join us? No, I'll examine it.

But like this also, this was a dumb lock because it's like, why do I keep picking these teams on the road that are trending downward when when I'm picking.

You know, Greg, the only thing that would actually end the lock competition is if we all just joined on the same lock. That would be the only way. I'm heavily considering it. I'll take it to the committee. I think my second team in the standings is now tied.

You so well, yeah, you have multiple franchises to sort out, so I can't like Mickey lumits.

The Mickey Lumis of the locks competition.

All right, let's uh take a quick break and then we will finish up.

A right welcome back.

Uh, it is time to dive into the mysterious and terrifying and grizzly world of the NFC South. Mask up, everybody, mask up, like the outbreak gear, the full the full bodysuit with the pull on, and then there's like the window.

We're back there.

Yeah, yeah, we're back there.

Let's go from the eleven yard line.

Good snap, Mayfield, you can go back the ball left.

There, there's a cockball cockball touchdown.

Kate Oughton mikes it over the shoulder catch how the box?

Will we take the lead?

Yeah?

One on one coverage and you could tell by the body language of Mayfield he was going to and the whole way.

Well, forget his.

Number twenty holding defense number twenty seven.

Decline it. That's not listen Roberts. He's a stickler for rules and he.

Wanted to make sure we have the holding call an announcement in there. Thank you the completionist.

Still like them complete Kado and oh that was Jane decker Hoff with the call kateot and.

Pretty good tight end, good little tight end. Knowing Djokus he is Dave should have been in the show to that. You know what, We'll do it again, Jo highlight by the end of the show.

Just do an entire episode on his highlights from today.

Kate Otten hauled in an eleven yard touchdown Bass with thirty one seconds to play. It was a wild fourth quarter and it allowed the Bucks to move into a tie for first place in the Stinkiest Blue Cheese NFC South twenty nine to twenty five over the Falcons. Greg, are we completely certain that the season will end with an NFC South champion?

And if so, do you think it is the Bucks who.

Find a way they did on Sunday?

I think you're selling the Bucks short. They're not tied for the first place. They are sure the first place team, the Bucks.

So excuse me.

This game, excuse me was drafted by yours truly for just the scenario that happened that the Bucks had the ball late in the game, and I was thinking this is the Bucks season. If they do not score a touchdown on this drive, which they received, I believe with three minutes and twenty seconds left, their season's over. They're down two, they won't have the tie breaker four to go.

Yeah, but he's got moxy.

Ran into like four sacks pressure that wasn't there for most of the day, had his best two throws of the game when he absolutely needed to, which has been I think typical of him late this season is he's he's in the perfect division for who he is. He's come up with his best work late in the game. And third and ten, it was one, sixteen to go. He had been forcing throws to Godwin the whole time, ten targets for at that point like twenty yards, and

I'm issuing a correction to your correction. What there's a three way top ty top the NFC.

Get it.

But the first time it's out the end of the area.

Who is in first place in the nfcon there are three teams that are six and seven.

Who is in the middle of December, That's all that matter.

Who's in first place.

Don't worry about anything else about tie breakers and all that. Boss, we'll get to that. There's plenty of time for that to decide it. But right now there's this is the NFC South Mark six and seven, six and seven, six and seven, one and twelve.

I awe, some fun I know I'm rooting at this point, Like you gotta flip it around if you're looking for something that's intriguing, Like there's a chance for to get a seven win team winning this division and you've never we've had seven to nine, you've never had seven and ten, So that would be intriguing. I mean, if I said to you back in August. I believe that Baker Mayfield will be the best quarterback in this division by like mid December.

And that's not saying he's he is a Pryce.

Young Car Baker.

This year's version of Car. I'm just saying it's not much of a car wreck in the division.

When care this morning, I was feeling pretty dangerous that it does apply. You know, we tried who was it.

Who's the reporter tried to get Baker at the end of the interview to say he was feeling dangerous, beat him up on it and everything, and He's like, no, I wasn't feel dangerous, and I woke up and he walked.

Away pretty good. Who was the reporter? Somebody? We know? The game?

Go ahead, go on, I'll figure this out.

I think they had something like eighty something yards on their first eight or nine drives. Like the Bucks defense was giving up play Like this was the ultimate Desmond Ridder game. Who's gotten better at football? He threw for three forty seven in this game. He threw for a touchdown, ran for another. But like he just finds a way to make the biggest mistakes possible in the most crucial moments. He missed a wide open Baijon Robinson for a touch down.

What has happened?

Back in that world, he'll be John Robinson, by the way, Young Wa Ku, who's great.

He's nails. But he missed two field goals in this game, which cost them the game in a way. But also well, and they're fifty and fifty two out, but for him, that's usually money in the bank.

That also gives Justin Tucker back.

I believe the all time leading kick percentage for active players nice worked, so I'm happy about that, but I like I like young Wait Coup, so bummer to him.

Good player, just not a great day.

I think my two all Pro safeties were in this game and they were both making monster plays.

Baits ended like three drives in winfield.

Is the one that had that hose fumble, I mean, which could have been a touchdown, it turned into a safety because it bounced in the Falcons guy.

We agreed, Baits was the clearly the best free agent pickup of the of the off sea has been great.

Great maneuver. Without even thinking, who wins the NFC South?

Mark Bucks great, I'm gonna go with Falcons, Me Bucks, nobody. It just says a lot about the Saints that they get no votes in this scenario.

A right, let's stay in the NFC South where the Panthers and Saints did battle Saints movie towards that feels like and the field level sweeps rolls to us. Right, this car throws at the ends on start car playing in this game for us.

Jimmy Graham votes down.

Oh he thought he might dunk.

It, but he didn't. Jimmy don't want that.

Fine, he doesn't have that.

He's not allowed either that he ruined the goalpost at one time. I remember, heyday, Mike cossinduce McAllister with the call.

Toxic.

Even after this win, all I see around the team, the reporting and the fans and the retweets and everything, it's just negativity, like why isn't Jimmy.

Graham playing more? And drama about car.

And the center fighting on the field and reporters squabbling with the head coach.

Enjoy a win, guys, christ.

I understand what you're saying.

I think that, like you could look at just the score of this game and it's deceiving it. It was a really rough watch on both sides. We already understand that the Panthers are a rough watch. But these two quarterbacks, and I think this frustration is just that it's you want to look at the win alone, isolated cool, but it is a continuation of a disturbing pattern with Carr in the Saints, and it's like, I get that he's the lightning rot and it's going to take critique no

And this is a crazy stat.

He averaged thirteen point four air yards per attempt today, the fifth most by any quarterback in a game all year.

On those passes.

He was zero for six in the first half and one for nine with thirty two yards in the whole game. It's like you're going ten, twelve, thirteen minutes at a time, drive after drive where it's like, no matter how depressing the car situation is, I just want the season end for Bryce Young because it's like there is there.

Are the saddest team in the league.

It's sad, and like it's sad because of what you've given up for him, who he is, like what he's meant to represent, and you've already fired your coach, and it's just like it's a tough watch.

They ran for two hundred and four yards on the Saints, which is another continuing issue for the Saints is that they get run over every week and they still only picked up six points. I mean the reason though, that there's negativity after the game is, look, Eric McCoy is the leader of that offense. If you have to pick one player over the last you know, five to eight years or whatever. He's the center, he's a captain, he's the leader of the offense. He's always very cool, calm

Bench the quarterback? Like he's already injured anyway.

If everyone's so miserable about the quarterback at the quarterback out of.

The lineup, I mean, I don't know, but it isn't just from a distance, it seems a little odd that there's so much even in a blowout win, you know, twenty.

Eight to six.

I'll say this, they did put together two late touchdown drives where you know, Jimmy Graham became a factor late in the game on that front. But it isn't like like I think, to your point, Dan, like a couple of weeks ago, or like the idea that like Cars getting killed, but he's actually playing well. It's like you had a couple of nice passes in this game, but we're not even getting the Derek Carr that we got a year ago in Oakland, which was not the Derek Carr we got previous to that in Oakland.

So it was far less in this game.

But well, he just battling through and he played his best game of the season against the Lions last week for what it was worth.

So some guys get presented as Warriors, and then there's Car who's being killed for playing poorly in a game where he barely made out of the previous game alive. Yeah.

I just I'm just like, the whole vibe is frustrating to me around New Orleans right now.

McCoy did apologize to reporters about the spat, saying, should what was it about? Nobody they want to.

Say, you know, there's that guy, John Boy.

We'll find out something.

Yeah, there's the guy John Boy.

Who does mostly baseball stuff, but he has a whole empire up there in New York, and he's a great lip reader, and he does all these great videos. If you're a baseball like that, reading lips of whether it's fights on the field or what's going on.

We need that. We need that guy, and I film needs a version of that guy. I was thinking of that when the Mahomes sideline tirade happened. This would be another example.

Oh maybe does John Boy have like a a brother or a sister that has the same sign.

I don't know him personally, our buddy Chris Rose works with. Yeah, So I'm how about for the second half of the football game, we're gonna try to go to watch and a few minutes ask We're gonna ask.

Him here's brother return touchdown? On a day where Steve Gleason is there in attention about that.

I'm glad you mentioned that because I was like sitting at the top of my notes and went somewhere else. It was actually ruled a fumble, So it wasn't I mean, it looked like it wasn't it, But you know, but that, yes, I guess even a dance point even that couldn't just have been what it needed to be.

It's remarkable, like Steve Gleeson who had the famous block punt when they reopened the Superdome after Katrina late stage als like he's the fact that he's going in these games remarkable. Yeah, whether or not accounted well, the touchdown counted.

They just ruled it.

Just it's nitpicky, like apparently like if you if you cause a fumbel before he even tried to punt it, essentially they didn't count. But he has a remarkable human I think he has a new book out or he had a book. Like every time he speaks, people should listen.

There you go, enjoy yourself, guys, it's holidays. Let's go across the sidewalk.

Charges football ball now the charger forty six yard Linus Wilson has him with the stomach.

Walk by the glass before tough time forever to throw the ball.

Steps up, now froze a deep ball he wants.

Courtland goes up, touchdown, dever penally fight thrown.

Get your penalty flag out of my highlights.

Let's go your first call as Courtland much like an NBA power forward, just blocked out Davis caught the ball basketball arm.

You got in the boot right?

How did you do that? Because you were in the newsroom. I thought the whole day trotted over.

Didn't go to Brown Starters, but decided to go to Brons.

Well, I needed to make this comment though, you know, I got a feeling it was coming.

Danger spounces back after last weeks three interception performance. He throws two touchdown passes and two hundred and twenty four yards through the air, and the Broncos crews over the Chargers who are dead in the water twenty four to seven the final. The Broncos keep winning and yeah, like I said, and probably a game out in the AFC West as the Chiefs continue to struggle.

On their own. Okay, so who have this game?

I did Greg justin Herbert might have played his last snap this season.

So what happened.

Let's get to the Broncos later.

But that is the biggest story to come out of this game they're playing on Thursday night. He had a right index finger injury. It's been reported by our guy rap sheet. It's a fracture, and Ian said, because of where this is happening in the season, that he might not be able to play again this season. Brandon Standle lost Right was asked about it as well, and he said, in terms of Herbert returning this season specifically, that is

Just our market didn't get Chiefs bills.

Right because of this.

Our market got some with Easton Stick back there, and it was emblematic what's happened because Herbert was you were at a bar crushed in the first half. He took four sacks and he never takes sacks, but they were all over him. Their offensive line head injuries. In this games. Ion Johnson got hurt, and that's been part of the season. It is the offensive line not nearly playing as well. Like there was this drops. He's making some really bad

Doesn't seem antiquated for where we are in Societ that like regions of the country are still getting banged by the local team playing.

I mean, this is a national sport, like, come on, you gotta give.

Us another way to walk Sunday TV Sunday, right.

I it is, but I mean tons of people are watching Red Zone two and things like.

That, more expensive than the other option. But I hear what you're saying.

They find a way to figure everything like this out, and so this hangs out there as an odd pathway.

Denver defense finished with six sacts two turnovers. They held the Chargers to combine one of eighteen on third and fourth down.

Jaklon McMillan is like a star.

Every week the undrafted slot guy makes just a couple massive plays.

He was great. Hey, if the Broncos follow me on this one. The Broncos ever won ten and seven John Payton Coach.

Of the Year.

It's got to be in the mix.

I mean, you got to that'd be one of the greatest turn because I think I think it's like relative to what they were last year and what.

They are, I would put that similar to my fantasy team going from one to five date and six. I think that's where I kind of put that.

I think you would get consideration and should. The only part with that argument I've seen Broncos fans making already is like the main part of the argument seems to be about how they responded to one and five, But he was the coach of the one in five. He gets full credit for the one in five too. The fact that they're at seven to six overall, I think is a good coaching job. Well, but I think if you said that going into the season, that's like that's one game better than expectation.

That's also he also is taking over a team that was, you know, somewhat in tatters with a lot of questions starting right with your quarterback, like the defense needed time to figure itself out.

So I don't really done a great job.

I don't a great I mean the six games that they went one in five count as part of this.

Definitely, he would definitely be the first NFL coach to win Coach of the Year that also lost seventy to twenty in a season that has never happened.

That you could cement that as true and advance Joseph.

I mean this has been in. The defense is capricious. How about that. You know it goes up and down. But vans Joseph's coaching a top ten defense now for two months straight. The defense had the offense has stayed about the same all year. It's been consistent. They let other teams lose games. It's a winning formula. They run the ball well enough. Wilson is a lot of checkdowns and then a lot of just bombs, and like he might have gone two for seven on bombs today or whatever.

In the end of it. I think it was one of the catches of the year.

It's sort of got slept on because you didn't see it on the angle he saw the other reverse angle. It seems completely impossible in a beautiful throw that Wilson had all the time in the world.

They're playing, well, yeah, I'm not sure I want to see them in the playoffs.

Personally, that's a that's a Mark thing.

But I like something about who gets instead of them, like, would you rather I'd rather see them over.

I don't know. I don't know.

Julius Thomas and Damarius Thomas were the last Denver receivers to reach double digits and touchdowns until Courtland Sutton. Those were in the Peyton Man and Glory years. And also, Mark, I know you like a kind of exaggerated numbers comedy. This is Russell Wilson on your corner. I think I had about thirty five seconds back there, he said about the clean pocket before the Sutton touchdown. I went left, went right, went through my reads, and then back to Courtland.

I mean that's what he used to do in Seattle, so it must feel good. I mean that offensive line is falling out too.

They have the yeah that when Joey Bosa got heard that just sort of.

Chargers.

All right, if the if the Panthers are the saddest team in the NFC, I think the Chargers AFC.

The Jets agreed.

You know, no, now the Patriots have escaped, it's the Chargers.

I mean the Chargers feel it feels very bleak. They don't.

It feels very bleak and just pressing, and it's week after week without any light shining through.

The Jets was like kind of a tragic season. But even like today showed that they're fighting hard.

Yeahn know. If that's happening for Brendan Staley's team.

Well they're packing up the tent.

I don't think it's happening for Brandon Staley's team.

Now, all right, real quick, guys, yes, before we get to Sunday night football.

Yes, that's something for you.

Dan Oh, Flack, go underneath third and one, it turns, bootlegs.

It out to the right.

It's gonna man wide open.

Had jokers got it, hit the phone, touchdown, Bang, beautiful fake fight.

Flacoh, you're happy.

Come on, that's a good call.

I will.

My argument wouldn't be that it's not a good call.

How did you do this for the first time. We've been doing the show for eleven years. You somehow turned in a great Brown's touchdown into something you're needling Mark about.

I mean, it's kind of big surprise. It's kind of amazing. It's a magic tricky you both. I'm glad that Dave Nijoku got his moment and it was a great day for Joe Flack.

Those two men deserve to be celebrated on the show and now they have. And I'm with you on that.

Teamwork all right to Sunday Night football.

Second goal snap, the Prescott looks left, slam gallup touchdown.

That was right. Now, that is offensive possessions for the Dallas Cowboys, and that is three touchdowns in a field goal.

Man Brad Sham the sham God with the call. After the score on NBC, they cut away to Jara's box, which listen, Jerah makes the rules. Although they have had trouble in the stadium's history with fire.

Code, You're right, go to your research. If you don't know what I'm talking talking about.

There had to be three hundred people in that suite celebrating. Everyone vaguely looked exactly the same grade five, though, for the Cowboys, who beat the Eagles thirty three to thirteen, exactly the type of comprehensive takedown of their rival that they kind of needed, not just Mark to potentially steal the NFC East away from the Eagles.

And the top seeds in the NFC.

But also for the skeptics out there, they're like, Wow, they're the Cowboys. They'll find a way again. Another performance where it's like, or this might be a different team.

They feel differently to me, and I've been a skeptic and kind of waited for Dallas to have like the kind of game where it is assured, it is cemented that they're a different type of Cowboys team, and I saw it. I mean, these two teams know each other so well, and I think they caught Philadelphia at a time where the Eagles are having some struggles of their own.

I mean it didn't in that case because the Cowboys took it right back. Every single moment in this game. They just looked like they were gonna make the big plays and the Eagles wouldn't. You look at the yardage and it doesn't look that uneven yards for play like

When they needed to make a play, they made it.

And even on the rare chances when the Eagles won up front, because actually the defensive Land thought played okay in this game, Dak just hits them with like a beautiful Eli Manning to Manningham type bomb to Gallop on the sideline.

They were just better. They're just better.

That's very big of you to reference that play twice that night. Incredible.

Yeah, Dak with pressure in his face dropping that and the bucket to gallop that just shows the zone he is in right now and has been for weeks.

And I mentioned it earlier in the show.

This MVP race is becoming like a corker because Dak does not lose any ground, Lamar moves up a little bit, party re establishes.

Himself Tyreek on Monday Night. I'm not not giving up on that one either. You can have your Tyreek v saying the qbs.

But these qbs, I guess what I'm saying more not taken away from Tyreek. I'm just saying one more to go. I think those are the four main ones right now. But I think now we're saying, oh, there's no quarterbacks where it's really jumping out some of these guys. Now they're starting to stack week after week, big performances and the numbers are getting gaudy, and that wins MVPs. But yeah, you have this this game for the Cowboys, and they are like essentially unbeatable at home.

Well they are, they're not essentially. They're seven to zero at.

Geral World this year, and that is a big deal because if they can keep this up and take that top seed and make the NFC go through Dallas once again, you're starting to think this could be a different year for the Cowboys.

Yeah, I mean there is an interesting stretch coming up because they are untouchable at home. Only one of their final four games in the regular season are at home. They have to go to Buffalo, they have to go to Miami, they played Detroit at home, then they have to go to Washington. So it's like the Cowboys have to keep proving this if they want.

I guess part of like the point we were talking making at the beginning of this is they've proven themselves now. To me, like I don't expect them to go lay agn anywhere now is this is a different experience.

We have been covering this Cowboys team as a group for like a decade plus, and there was a reason to be annoyed with the pitch versus the product in past years. They're beating teams in every possible way, and and and they just went and did it to the Eagles, who It's like, that's what I needed to see.

I'm good.

So the Eagles are now ten and three. There's a an instinct to say, Okay, well, you just got through the toughest five game stretch any team's gonna have all season, and you went three and two, which isn't you know, if you look take a step back, and it's not too embarrassing. You know, you got those wins against the Cowboys. He split with the Cowboys against the Bills. Who's the other one that I'm missing in their Chiefs the Chiefs. And then you know, you lose these two games.

But you lost these two games by a combined score of seventy three two.

Yeah, and you're get just getting tired. And next and yes, their last three games of the season are easy, but next week you're in Seattle. So like I give I actually give them a slight edge to win the division just because of the schedule, and that would make all the difference in the world. And I think they're a veteran enough team that they could kind of gather their forces and improve from now until the playoffs and end up being very dangerous in the playoffs. But right now

There are we going?

Oh, I think you know exactly where we're going.

Cowboys are not that dissimilar to the forty nine ers, and that they can come at you in waves with big time players and stars, and they have unearthed a major.

Star in their special teams.

It's Brandon Aubrey, the former soccer player who was What's They all have great backstories.

He was on accountant or something for a brief.

Period software manager after his pro soccer career didn't go well, and then his wife said, watching foot like you could do this, So we just practiced for.

Three years to see.

A great wife will take you great places, including to the top of the kicking power rankings.

Four for four in this game with a long of sixty.

Also hit a fifty nine yarder, also hit a fifty yarder.

And he's piping these kicks and he yes, it's bottle service.

It is straight.

All friends allowed in, the girls coming in with the big signs and everything, and the sparklers like Brandon Aubrey gets all of it in the Kicker Club tonight.

And if I may be a little.

More serious, this game could have turned out differently in the second half if not for Aubrey's greatness, because after the Jalen Carter scoop and score makes this a game?

What's the score at that point?

After actually twenty three to fourteen? Yeah, twenty three fourteen. The Cowboys get the ball twenty four thirteen. They make a couple of plays and then the drive stalls on the Eagles side of the field. Zaddy decides to bring out Aubrey for this bomb from fifty nine. And if he doesn't make that kick, the Eagles are coming off a defensive score and they have the ball at midfield, and you just don't know what could happen. But the fact that he made that kick it kind of calmed

Yeah, and to close the game out with three field goals from him. And these are drives that ended at the Philly forty one, twenty seven, and thirty two. So Dallas wasn't able to knock out punch with Ceedee Lamb or Tony Pollard or fill in the blank.

But each of those drives ate up five plus minutes.

So in a way, like I thought, he was the executioner in this and kept chipping away and taking the life away from Philadelphia.

He's thirty for thirty on field.

Forget about Tucker being on top of the list. We got a new one. Not right, I mean that's one hundred percent. I know he doesn't quite qualify, but not yet, got it. They just have so many elite players. When they were showing, you know at the beginning when they do the starting lineups and they show the PFI gres Yeah, I know PFF's not perfect, well, but I just it's like Dak number one out of thirty four, quarterback Tyler Smith number one out of forty something, guards Tyron Smith

You wonder why Jarah Jara's box is shaking with everyone celebrating because they have put together a monster team there.

And it should be said, I got it. I went through all that.

Aubrey is the first kicker to make a fifty nine and sixty yard field goal in the same game.

So that that's history a pretty.

Crazy yeah, Like I kind of was thinking, wait, that's never happened before. But to your post sums, Yeah, that's just those kicks weren't really being attempted in the in ages of old.

I mean until like ten years ago, a fifty nine yard er there probably was less than ten in NFL history.

Imagine like ten years ago, thousands of people.

This is the final week of the regular season in fantasy that went into Sunday Night Football. Their opponent just had a kicker and they had an eighteen point lead. You lose, as Brandon Aubrey literally makes history crazy, So big win for the Cowboys.

Forty nine ers now in great position for the one.

Seed Niners in the driver's seat.

But the Cowboys right behind him if there's a slip up, and yes, the Eagles very much in the mix as well. It's going to be a great ending to this regular season in the NFC. Before we say goodbye, I want to circle back because I thought the quotes are strong enough from Mahomes on the situation at the end of the game, and we were noticing on Twitter people were doing lip reading. And by the way, John Boy Jimmy O'Brien does have siblings.

Yeah, like a younger brother and two sisters.

Yeah, Chris Rose confirmed that.

But I don't know if any of them are willing to or even have the ability to help us out in that way for lip syncing or lip reading in the NFL.

But we'll stay on top of that story.

Here is Mahomes, who what he was so furious about was it seems like not that von Miller bake off sides as much, it was that they called that on Tony and given obviously the play that wiped out.

In that moment.

I mean I've played seven years, never had that, never had offensive all side. It's called I mean, that's the that's elementary school we talk about. I mean, you point to the ref do all that different type of stuff and it doesn't get called, and if it does, they warn you. And there was no warning throughout the entire game. And then you wait till there's a minute left in the game to make a call like that. It's just tough, man,

And again, this is out of character for Mahomes to be this outspoken, but also what he says here about what Kelsey did on that play. And that's why as a football fan, Greg, I know, because you would pick the Bills, but like to have that exciting play wiped away. You understand the frustration. And I thought Mahomes summed that up well.

I mean, it's a legendary moment, man, I mean, no, something that's not taught something and only a couple of people in this world would even think about doing. And for him to make that play in that moment, miss making the catch, making a couple dudes missed, and throwing the ball across the field to another guy and scoring

Calls back to what you said earlier, Mark, what is it that I said like one more point and then you mentioned a play that was wiped away by penalty? You and Pat mahomes.

Well, I mean, I, first of all, if he I trust him to point out like an inconsistency in this call, I mean, it's it's it is if it's not something that we see and like, I don't know like it. It was so frustrating and it's another last week. It feels like that game against Green Bay was a million years ago, but like that game was torn down by really wacky officiating, Like it stood out as one of the worst games of the year officiating, and then this happened in this moment.

Is the call wrong technically no, should the officials maybe get the hell out.

Of the way.

But the nuance he mentioned about, like there are kind of an agreement between the officials.

You usually warned usually the players are looking over to the side. We don't know if that happened. Like you also can't give the warning if like Tony wasn't out there and doing that in similar spots. And he has not been playing much in recent weeks. I don't know what his snapcount was in this game, but it's been like under twenty snaps in general.

Most of these weeks.

And he was so far off sides he was blocking the view the official. So it wasn't like it was close. He was way on the other side. So I understand Mahomes points.

Way on the other side is strong, but it puts on.

The line in that the his head is blocking, is blocking the official. I just mean there has been it seems to me an emphasis. So we checked the numbers and there has been thirteen offensive offsides called this year, which doesn't sound like much.

That's one per.

Week, but that's ten more than the two previous seasons combined. So it was a call that they never used, and I wish, I wish I could remember, but this was called in a big spot just last week, and I was looking for it, trying to find it, and and it wasn't. But it has been happening here and there and I think it's the frustration of the whole season.

Is just it's part of it.

It is sure because and this is a safe way to take out some of that anger.

Then he said, I I held my nose or I didn't say anything after that controversial Packers game, but this time I couldn't.

I don't know.

And it is.

Brilliant from Kelsey that that was not a play call. That is something Kelsey just awesome does. It is freaking crazy.

It didn't count, And I know Eric, Eric agrees that that should have been a touchdown because you're a man of integrity.

All I know is the side of the glass to and O in these games you guys are talking about.

Was on the right side.

We've actually not been listening to anything you've been saying last ten minutes, So.

That's all right, untrue of previous producer.

Right, you guys have to listen to plenty of honey from us.

The play was amazing.

I will give him that Tiki tak Yes, definitely, but hey, rules of the rules get out of the way.

Yeah, I feel you, but listen. If if I was a Bills fan, I'd be exactly the same as you. But as a football fan.

I'm like, damn it that the countless of these games go the other way against the Bills and we're fashioned.

So this one I'm get it. Man, take it.

Take it when you can get.

You have nothing to apologize for. Thanks football fans like this. Greg's like, yes, I have a pick in one of my seventeen things I'm doing.

Yeah, well that's seventeen slightly game debut. Check it out and the locks. Let's go all right?

All right. That is the Sunday flagship program. Hope you enjoyed it.

We'll be back on Monday on NFL Plus Game of the Week and also our Monday Night podcast, which is a news rundown and two Monday Night football game.

What that's a real thing?

Why?

I don't know, Heed the call.